Want to know who the next Democratic president will be? Read this.

[dolstein]

I can't give you a name yet, but I can describe the kind of candidate who gives Democrats the greatest likelihood of success.

The next Democratic president will be a popular governor of a red state who has never served in Congress.

The next Democratic president will be someone who grew up in a small town under modest circumstances.

The next Democratic president will be openly religious (but not Catholic).

[jpgray]

1. That's not Democratic success you're describing

Democratic success will be to move this country back to the left, kicking and screaming. The Republicans moved it right by attaching right-wing policies to everybody's worst prejudices and inclinations on moral issues. The right-wing economic policies were never very popular, but the divisive wedges used to push them sure as hell were.

If we have to play the god guns and gays game every time, we'll never get a foot in the door, because these policies are tied so wholly in the minds of voters to corporate welfare, trickle-down economics and imperialism--to the Republicans. A Democrat who says "me too" while pushing a more progressive economic plan will be seen as weak-kneed and second-best, and conflicted. A religious Democrat is viewed with a mistrustful "but he/she isn't a Republican, how can he/she be religious?"

We need to change the debate, even if it means we aren't going to be winning much for a while.

[dolstein]

5. Yes it is.

Jimmy Carter's background as an evangelical Christian who grew up dirt poor in Plains, Georgia and rose to become governor of that state helped him carry the South in 1976 It's also worth noting that even though he lost to Reagan in 1980, he still ran strongest in the South.

Bill Clinton's background as a Baptist who grew up poor in Hope, Arkansas and rose to become governor of that state helped him carry several Southern states in 1992 and 1996.

If the Democrats can compete in the red states, they can't elect a president. It's that simple.

[jpgray]

10. My point is, if we continue to move right, we're not winning much

I agree with your premise that such a candidate (Warner, whoever) may have a good chance of winning, but the real work to be done is to move the debate back to the left. Nixon would be considered a flaming liberal today, and that's what I'm more interested in turning back. Conservative policies with a D attached don't thrill me much or read like a victory, although I am committed to electing the most sympathetic people we can. I just think we should do both at once, rather than give up all hope and pander directly to the god, guns and gays wedges that the Republicans have already claimed for themselves.

[AP]

21. Carter didn't grow up dirt poor. I believe his father owned a big farm.

He grew up very closely with people who were dirt poor.

[Sterling]

26. Oh god, worst idea ever.

I can tell by the next election there will be two parties in place of the dem party to oppose the pukes. I can't see these two paths merging with each other.

It's either pander to fundies or not and I would say a great portion of the party will revolt in droves if we chase the fundie vote anymore than we have foolishly already.

[mzmolly]

51. We don't have to compromise principals, but we need to re-define

morals in liberal terms.

Kerry was between a rock and a hard place. Just look at the division here over this topic.

Some people are angry that Kerry didn't talk about his religion and place a so called moral value on the election, and others threated to revolt if the Dems do so. If Kerry envoked "God" too much, Nader was their to scoop up the disgruntled, if Kerry didn't envoke "God" enough, Bush was their to scoop up the fooled.

On the other hand, Clinton did envoke God, but he did so in a way that defined values on our terms. Of course, then he pulled the "Monica Lewinsky". *sigh*

[ShaneGR]

11. Unfortunately, you're wrong

Play in the south or die. As for dragging kicking and screaming, you're right, except they'll just continue to kick us in the mouth.

[jpgray]

13. So continue to play a game the Republicans have created for themselves?

Nonsense, and nowhere do I say "give up the South". My idea is to give the poor/blue-collar South something better to vote on than wedge issues tied to self-destructing economic policies.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. I'll Do Whatever It Takes To Win...

I'm tired of loosing...

[jpgray]

23. We can win anytime we want, if we give up our values

We could become a one party state and win all the time if we wanted to--that's not the idea. My goal, and I assumed the goal of most on this site, is to move the country away from economic elitism, bigotry, and imperialism. We have to craft these goals into powerful messages, or create some wedges to attach them to. The right wing succeeded by grafting their unpopular conservative economics onto divisive wedge issues that were popular to a plurality of Americans. We're not going to win by playing to those same wedge issues, or at least if we do we're not going to be winning much.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. Clinton Was Pro Choice, Pro Gay, Pro Affirmative Action

And He Won...


I want to win ....

While you are having all these salon type debates America is drifting into fundamentalist rule...

[jpgray]

28. DOMA, global trade investor giveaways, media consolidation

Clinton was to the right in many ways. To me, that is not representative of a victory, though he was certainly better than the alternative and deserving of a vote. Victory to me is halting and reversing our rightward drift.

[mzmolly]

53. I'll take a Clinton victory over a so called principled loss any day.

Their are too many people hurting over our desire for perfection.

MLK
Jimmy Carter
JFK
RFK
Wellstone

Some of our greatest heros were men of one faith or another.

[jpgray]

54. I don't want the Nader approach--I worked hard for Clinton

It's not that conservative Democrats should be kicked out or that we shouldn't vote for the most sympathetic candidate in an election who can win, but rather that we should do this WHILE trying to move the debate to areas where we can defeat the Republicans on values. God, guns and gays have been defined by the right as concurrent with right-wing policy in other areas--we either have to find a value system that will work in concert with progressive ideals (should be easy) or we have to deconstruct and redefine those the Republicans use. Nowhere do I say we should abandon politicians who don't pass a "liberal enough" test. We should vote for them AND work for a better political climate at the same time.

[mzmolly]

58. Agree totally.

eom

[Kahuna]

60. Amen. Clinton,, like all SUCCESSFUL candidates run as centrists..

what part of this don't people understand. The key word here is, "successful."

[Sterling]

31. Exactly fight for there god damn jobs and maybe just maybe...

Take a position on illegal imigration that makes sense? The south would turn on a dime if we could appeal to their sense of populism.

Regardless we can't try to out republican the pukes. It's just stupid and is the reason we are as screwed as we are. The Pukes waited 30 years to get hear and we have no idea how to stop them yet. They did not do it by becoming more centrist.

You must admire how dedicated they are to their hateful agenda. They are not willing to sell it out to please you, me or anyone.

[Mike L]

36. The game is there for either Party to play.

I think middle America 'wanted' to side with Dems due to jobs issues, healthcare, etc, but they couldn't get over the perception that Dems are tied to gay marriages, taking down the 10 commandments from courthouses, etc.

Also, Kerry screwed up royally in his primary campaign when he said, "I will never be the candidate of the NRA." Great, bonehead, actively TRY to piss off gun owners.

[Wat_Tyler]

2. That's not Barack Obama.

[dolstein]

3. You catch on quickly.

NT

[theboss]

4. Warner?

I've developing a guy-crush on him

[dolstein]

12. Not a perfect fit

He grew up in the city of Indianapolis. He's very wealthy, although if he's self made, that's not a problem.

Still, he's one of the people I'd look out for. Same for Tom Vilsack of Iowa (which is a purple state). He came from a poor background, but once again, he grew up in a city (Pittsburgh). He's also a Catholic, which I think is going to present serious challenges for a Democratic nominee.

I'd also look out for Mike Easley of North Carolina, who was just reelected in a landslide. He grew up on a tobacco farm in Nash County, North Carolina. Like Warner and Vilsack, he never served in Congress.

[dsc]

29. Easley has alot of baggage

and a very prickly personality. The media would crush him and LGBT would all but boycot him given his last minute support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He also hates public appearences which would make a national campaign difficult at best.

[NewJeffCT]

64. Dean had a prickly personality, as does Bush

How would the media crush him?

Clinton had baggage, too, including a guy named Scaife that was obsessed with bringing him down.

[ShaneGR]

6. Holden, Vilsack, Warner, or Easley

That would be it I think.

[dolstein]

14. See Post #12

Holden unfortunately proved to be an unpopular governor.

But Vilsack, Warner and Easley are people we should look out for.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. I Like A Warner-Richardson Ticket....

That ticket rocks and tears the hearts of the Pug party...


We get the south, the southwest, and a Hispanic...


The great thing about Richardson is he's Hispanic enough to excite his fellow Hispanics and not Hispanic enough to alienate the goobers in the flyover states....

[dolstein]

39. Warner couldn't carry the South

Like Clinton, he might be able to pick off a few Southern states, most likely Virginia and Arkansas, and possibly Tennessee and North Carolina. And of course that would be enough. I just don't want anyone around here to be under the impression that the Demmocrats could sweep the South. That's just not going to happen. Or at the very least, it is impossible for the kind of candidate would COULD carry the entire South to ever become the nominee of the Democratic Party.

[Kahuna]

61. Me too. Sounds perfect to me.

nt

[hatrack]

22. I have serious doubts about Vilsack

His personal story is compelling, the orphan who grew up to be governor, his upset initial victory over a heavily favored GOP incumbent (Lightfoot), and so forth.

However, he hasn't established a legacy in Iowa, per se, and although his favorability ratings are OK, he's also widely seen as a political opportunist in his own state. Not a terrible speaker, but he's sure as hell no Bill Clinton.

Don't know enough about Easley or Warner to comment intelligently.

[The Chronicler]

7. I'd agree.

The also have good connections with the farming community and with unions.

[IrateCitizen]

8. Tom Vilsack?

Iowa may not be "red", but it does epitomize "the heartland".

[ermoore]

9. Speculatin'.

Evan Bayh fits that description (well, except for the governor part), but he's pro-life and thus can never be on a Democratic ticket.

hmmm, where does that leave us? I'm gonna assume a Southern red state'd be better, since no Dem has ever been elected without carrying a Southern state.

I like Easley from NC, but given Edwards' success, I don't think he's popular enough to even win NC in a presidential election (OTOH, I could be wrong).

Governor of VA (Warner, right)? Possibly. Don't know much about his religion, though. I don't see much possibility in a candidate out of Alabama or Mississippi. And I don't know who the governors from Georgia or Tennessee are (and I'm too lazy to look). What about Louisiana? Do they have a Dem gov?

Bill Richardson? He seems like a pretty respectable candidate. I might could get behind him. Well, enough speculatin'.

[dolstein]

17. Evan Bayh's problem

isn't his position on abortion (he's not pro-life, by the way). It's that he's been serving in Congress, and having to defend a voting record is going to be a problem. He'd have a much better chance running as a popular former two-term governor of Indiana (which he was) than running as a two-term Senator.

[Kahuna]

62. Another problem with Bayh is his total lack of any spark of personality..

at all. He's too dry. No charisma at all.

[Francine Frensky]

16. The republican candidate WILL be a catholic

very high probability, top republicans at this point would be Arnold, Guilliani, Ridge, or Jeb..... the first three are all pro-choice....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

37. Arnold Can't Run...

He's Austrian...

We can beat Rudy or Ridge...


Jeb said he's not running but he would be tough...

[Kammer]

42. Now, not then

They may be pro choice now, but if they run, they will suddenly see the light and become pro-life; and the fundies will eat it up, another one converted....

[Julien Sorel]

48. Bill Frist is going to run.

And he's going to try to hold together the same collection of guns, God and gays voters that Bush has.

[Kahuna]

63. Republicans will NOT support a pro-life candidate except for..

Arnold maybe. Arnold is moot however because he cannot run.

[bhunt70]

18. Mark Warner from my state of Virginia.

[dolstein]

45. I grew up in Virginia -- Warner's problem is he can't run for reelection

Clinton, on the other hand, was not term-limited. And for a while governors served two-year terms. He must have been elected governor of Arkansas at least five times. The people of Arkansas were so accustomed to voting for Clinton that there was never any question that he'd be able to carry his home state in a presidential election.

Warner, on the other hand, has only run statewide in Virginia twice, and the first time he lost (though he did run fairly well in his Senate race). And unlike Clinton, he faces a strong Republican opposition in his home state. Indeed, there's some talk that George Allen may run for president in 2008.

I like Warner a lot. But my concern is that a single four year term simply isn't enough to create the kind of electoral base that he needs. While he's likely to run much stronger in the South than most other Democratic presidential contenders, the fact is that doesn't start with any Southern states "in the bag." Even his home state of Virginia is likely to be hotly contested. After beating Gore in Tennessee in 2000, the Republicans aren't about to make the mistake of ceding Virginia to Warner.

[xkenx]

20. Clark '08

Wes Clark grew up poor in the heartland, was a war hero, long-time military leader and international diplomat. In his military leadership positions, he proved himself as a "community" leader as well-like being a governor. Clark was the "moral values" candidate this year. The media ignored him because the R's feared him the most, and the DNC (Terry McAwful) feared him because he couldn't be controlled. Wes Clark would have been the strongest presidential candidate this year. Nothing will change for '08. We should be working on a Clark '08 run right now and persuading this national treasure to once again step up for his country.

[FrenchieCat]

24. Maybe he can run

for Governor of Arkansas in 2006. He could then be a small state governor and run for Prez. The War on Terra will not be won by then....so we will still need a Leader instead of a politician. Being new to politics, he would still be a politician "virgin".

I like Clark '08.

By then, maybe the Democrats will be wiser and understand that we can't run to the left during the primaries and then veer right during the General Election.

[dolstein]

40. He's a possibility, but I want him to run for governor of Arkansas

NT

[Mike L]

27. dolstein, you are exactly right.

Read my post, "Guns, God and Gays" and the Presidential election.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1316990

Which Dem faction will win this war for the Dem Party?

[Bread and Circus]

30. Fuck talking about candidates right now. It's useless.

We need to get a lot of other things in order before picking
a horse.

[PSU84]

32. Ed Rendell in 2008.

The Governor of Pennsylvania will be a strong candidate for President.

[demokatgurrl]

65. NO NO NO!!!!! HE IS THE WORST OF WEAK DEMOCRATS.

He is my governor. He bends over backward to appease Repubs. He agreed not to campaign against any Republican in the PA congress who voted for his budget. He was one of the first to urge Gore to pack it in. Then the day before Kerry chose Edwards, he mouthed off publicly, to the media, that he hoped it wasn't Edwards. Then yesterday he commended Kerry for his early concession.

No thanks. I probably won't even vote to re-elect him governor let alone president. Let him become a full time TV football commentator, he does it on Sundays already.


NO, not Rendell.

[urbanguerrilla]

33. Russ Feingold

Russ Feingold

[Walt Starr]

34. Mike Easley is our man

NorthCarolina. Would make HUGE inroads into the South.

[Mike L]

38. There is talk about him now. He won big in NC.

I'm afraid that Edwards got permanently linked to this election and he's not that well liked in NC now anyway.

[hughee99]

35. I 100% agree...

We need to change the debate, but we're not going to do that overnight (in the next 4 or maybe even 8 years). I think until then, only canidates like Clinton and Carter will be able to win.

[julialnyc]

41. Clark 08'

[xanadu1979]

43. O'Malley

What about Martin O'Malley?

[dolstein]

46. I think Martin's a great guy -- I met him back in college

Back then he was attending law school and helping to run Barbara Mikulski's senate campaign. I don't know how he managed to find the time to do both.

Martin is someone who might be able to relate to blue collar types. But I'm not sure how he'd play in the South. Plus he's a Catholic, and unfortunately it's going to be very hard for any pro-choice Catholic to run again as the Democratic nominee.

[Stinky The Clown]

50. I like O'Malley a lot, but .....

He is a future candidate at best, not for 08.

He'll very likely run for (and win) governor of MD in the next election. (We MUST get rid of that Nazi, Ehrlich). A term as a gov would serve him well on the national scene. He's still young (41? 42?)

But the downside is, he's quite liberal ... maybe too liberal for the national scene right now ...... but if for '12 ..... '16.

He has a real future.

[Meshuga]

44. Sounds like Mark Warner...

I don't know if he grew up under modest circumstances but he fits the rest.

[Cocoa]

47. maybe so, or...

alternatively, he or she may:

not be a governor
be a governor of a blue state
have served in Congress
have grown up in a large city
have grown up in a small city
have grown up in a suburb
be from a wealthy background
be privately religious
be openly Catholic

[d_b]

49. No more pandering to the right.

They won because of a more sophisticated propaganda machine that validates their sick view of the world. We can match it, or we can play into their hands.

[mzmolly]

52. Partly true, but they also won because they envoked "God" and we didn't

expose their hypocricy effectively.

And, whether or not we like it, the candidate described in the OP will likely be our next.

[d_b]

55. I hope you're wrong.

[IrateCitizen]

59. How is this pandering to the right???

Do you think that nominating someone like Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack would somehow be pandering to the right? Please explain how it would be, in detail.

[Jack Schitt]

56. Fuck that.

I want someone who's not going to pander to the right and keeps our Democrat beliefs.

[IrateCitizen]

57. Where did dolstein say anything about abandoning beliefs???

First off, I'm nearly beating my head against my desk defending dolstein, with whom I rarely agree on ANYTHING.

But nowhere in his post did he say anything about abandoning Democratic beliefs. He only tried to put forward a picture of what demographic our next Presidential candidate would likely come from.

I also tend to think he's right on this one -- another thing that makes me want to beat my head against the desk!

[Zhade]

66. Sorry, NO. Fuck Lieberman. He will never be president.

NT!